The flip-flop king of online music – Jason Olim of music e-tailer CDNow – is still peddling his pitch that a merger’s in the wings to save his struggling company.

But he may not be as confident as before, since no one appears interested in buying the company for a premium.

In fact, founder and CEO Olim said yesterday the company is talking with five potential investors, and they would probably get their piece of CDNow at below the current share price.

That news sent the stock plunging nearly 26 percent, or $1.09, to $3.25, a mere shadow of its high last July of $24.

CDNow, while popular with consumers, is expected to run out of money in less than six months and needs an investor or merger partner to stay in business.

It’s already burned through $212 million in six years without becoming profitable.

CDNow sales tripled last year to $147.2 million.

While making his announcement about the impending rescue, Olim also said that one of CDNow’s founding board members, Patrick Kerins, has resigned.

Kerins, managing partner of Grotech Capital Group, held his seat through Grotech’s sizable investment in CDNow. Olim said Grotech has disposed of its investment in CDNow, and Kerins quit because he needed to spend time on boards of other companies “where Grotech has significant investments.”

Olim said he will announce a deal for a new savior by the end of June.

“The actual transaction probably won’t be completed by then, but we’ll be able to announce it by that time,” said CDNow’s spokeswoman, Deborah Vondran.

For several weeks, Olim has made various announcements and clarifications that a merger is forthcoming. Those helped push up the stock temporarily to $4.88, but it skidded back to a new low of $2.03 a week ago.

Back in May, Olim said in a conference call with analysts that the company had been talking about a merger with “at least two dozen companies.”

He said the companies

would be reviewing CDNow’s books. But what the investors saw may not have been good for their eyes.

The Fort Washington, Pa.-based company’s auditor expressed “substantial doubt” back in April about CDNow’s ability to stay in business. The company had just $28.7 million left on its balance sheet at the time.

That blow came just two weeks after CDNow’s planned merger with Columbia House fell through. Insiders say Columbia House, which is jointly owned by Time Warner and Sony, dropped the merger plan because of CDNow’s shaky finances and instead opted to invest up to $51 million in the company.

But that $51 million investment fell through, too.

Olim says the company is trying to cut operating expenses by more than $12 million a quarter.